Designing a house takes a lot of work because the architect has to take in consideration the needs of the client, the structural needs of the building itself, and the needs of the context in which the house is located. In my design course I had to design a house located in an urban context; specifically downtown Caracas.
Curutchet House, Le corbusier
For this project I chose two main references to take in consideration:first The Roman Domus that was the typical urban house that ancient Romans built for the urban context, which basically consisted on two open areas called the “atrium” and the “tablinum” that worked as lungs of the house, so all the social and private areas were placed surrounding them. The second reference I took was the Curutchet House design by Le Corbusier in 1955 and placed in La Plata, Argentina. It was commissioned by Dr. Pedro Domingo Curutchet, a surgeon, in 1948 and included a small medical office on the first floor. The house consists of four main levels with a courtyard between the house and the clinic.
The building space I had was very long and narrow. The dimensions of the available building area were 7 meters wide and 45 meters long. Also I had to be aware that the house was going to be placed between other two houses that had 9 meters tall each.
The client I had to satisfy was an artist and his family, so the house had to be comfortable for minimum five people: The artist, his wife and three kids. Also, there had to be a space that could be used as a hall for people from outside the family, so the artist could work there and meet people for matters concerning to his work.
I chose the spatial organization theme of boxes accommodating over each other; so the air and light could be enough for every space. That theme shows from the façade, to almost every space of the house.
When it came to the execution of the house and its program, I organized it in three floors and two main blocks of uses. The first floor contained the social areas, which were the living room, the dining room and the kitchen. It also contained a bedroom and a bathroom placed in a different block of the house separated from the social areas. At the end of that floor was the garden, another table for eating in the garden and a bathroom. The second floor contained the hall of the artist over the block of the social areas and two bedrooms on the other block. The third floor only contains the main bedroom.
The mayor difficulty for designing this house was the need of natural light and air circulation, that’s why I decided to have almost no closed spaces on the building. Of course, there’s the need of privacy too, so the spaces closed to one side of the house with walls are open to the other with glass or without anything depending on the level of privacy the space needs.
The entire path walked through the house has natural light entering from above, whether it is from openings on the roofs or spaces with no ceiling. The exception of this happens on the stairs that connects the first and the second floor that has illumination from windows placed in one side of every rest of the stairs.
The final product of the design was a house that shows movement of spaces. The materials and structure chosen for the execution of the design had to go along with that purpose; that’s why I chose reinforced concrete because of its tensile and compressive strength and its minimum interference with the visual theme of the house. Load bearing walls were the best option for structure basically for the same optical reason mentioned before. Finally, the house accomplished the needs of the client and shows a different way to conceive spaces in an urban context.
Internal view of the house
View of the bedroom's block
Click on this link to view my final project video!
Final Project
Urban House
Designing a house takes a lot of work because the architect has to take in consideration the needs of the client, the structural needs of the building itself, and the needs of the context in which the house is located. In my design course I had to design a house located in an urban context; specifically downtown Caracas.
For this project I chose two main references to take in consideration: first The Roman Domus that was the typical urban house that ancient Romans built for the urban context, which basically consisted on two open areas called the “atrium” and the “tablinum” that worked as lungs of the house, so all the social and private areas were placed surrounding them. The second reference I took was the Curutchet House design by Le Corbusier in 1955 and placed in La Plata, Argentina. It was commissioned by Dr. Pedro Domingo Curutchet, a surgeon, in 1948 and included a small medical office on the first floor. The house consists of four main levels with a courtyard between the house and the clinic.
The building space I had was very long and narrow. The dimensions of the available building area were 7 meters wide and 45 meters long. Also I had to be aware that the house was going to be placed between other two houses that had 9 meters tall each.
The client I had to satisfy was an artist and his family, so the house had to be comfortable for minimum five people: The artist, his wife and three kids. Also, there had to be a space that could be used as a hall for people from outside the family, so the artist could work there and meet people for matters concerning to his work.
I chose the spatial organization theme of boxes accommodating over each other; so the air and light could be enough for every space. That theme shows from the façade, to almost every space of the house.
When it came to the execution of the house and its program, I organized it in three floors and two main blocks of uses. The first floor contained the social areas, which were the living room, the dining room and the kitchen. It also contained a bedroom and a bathroom placed in a different block of the house separated from the social areas. At the end of that floor was the garden, another table for eating in the garden and a bathroom. The second floor contained the hall of the artist over the block of the social areas and two bedrooms on the other block. The third floor only contains the main bedroom.
The mayor difficulty for designing this house was the need of natural light and air circulation, that’s why I decided to have almost no closed spaces on the building. Of course, there’s the need of privacy too, so the spaces closed to one side of the house with walls are open to the other with glass or without anything depending on the level of privacy the space needs.
The entire path walked through the house has natural light entering from above, whether it is from openings on the roofs or spaces with no ceiling. The exception of this happens on the stairs that connects the first and the second floor that has illumination from windows placed in one side of every rest of the stairs.
The final product of the design was a house that shows movement of spaces. The materials and structure chosen for the execution of the design had to go along with that purpose; that’s why I chose reinforced concrete because of its tensile and compressive strength and its minimum interference with the visual theme of the house. Load bearing walls were the best option for structure basically for the same optical reason mentioned before. Finally, the house accomplished the needs of the client and shows a different way to conceive spaces in an urban context.
Click on this link to view my final project video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNlTtEC3FGc